This invention is directed to a heat exchange apparatus and a warmer apparatus utilizing said heat exchange apparatus which is used in horticulture facilities, and more particularly to a heat exchange apparatus utilizing the solar heat and a warmer apparatus for use in horticulture facilities in which is incorporated said heat exchange apparatus.
The present invention concerns a heat exchange apparatus which for example causes heat generated in a greenhouse during the day to be absorbed by circulating water in order to stock such heat in water tanks and then let such stored heat discharged or emitted to effect warming of the greenhouse during the night without utilizing any artificially created heat source, or a heat exchange apparatus for heating or air cooling purpose which utilizes hot spring water or subterranean water.
This invention also relates to a warmer apparatus in which there are provided said heat exchange apparatus of specially designed water-air counterflow type operated highly effectively at a slight difference of temperatures of water and air and heat storage means comprising water tank units linked with each other, said heat exchange apparatus and heat storage means are connected by piping means, wherein water is employed as a medium and also as a regenerative source.
The background of one embodiment of the invention will be briefly described first. Needless to say, horticulture facilities of any country are indispensable to its national life. Ever since the so-called oil-shock, saving of fuels of the petroleum family consumed in heating has become one of the most important and urgent problems. In order to cope with the problem, the saving of petroleum is being tried in one direction which comprises an efficiency improvement and lowering of the load, for example development of high performance warmer apparatus, improved use of warmer apparatus, lessening of the load in the warmer apparatus through thermal insulation and so forth.
One of the most expected means for attaining the abovedescribed object that will be accepted generally is the utilization of the solar heat. In addition exploitation of the wind power, terrestrial heat, scrap wood, coal or natural gas to replace petroleum is being studied. Of these, it is needless to say that the use of the solar heat is the most universal.
In those areas of Japan where horticultural facilities are in use, for example, there is so much irradiation of the solar heat into the greenhouse during the day throughout the season when the warming and thermal insulation are required, the solar heat being sufficient to secure the energy required for the night time warming, which suggests the possibility of positively utilizing the solar heat.
A given temperature may be grasped as a heat conversion source, a greenhouse or the like itself being employed as a heat collecting means. One method to carry out this reasoning is a terrestrial heat exchange type house. However, the house of this type requires for heat exchange purposes wind tunnels of which floor area is substantially equal to that of the house, making the space of the wind tunnel enormously large, increasing time and labor needed to dig the ground, having a weakness that the storage of heat under the ground cannot be satisfactorily realized when the size of the house to be warmed and the effect of warming are taken into consideration, not to mention the defects such as water leakage and/or permeation of water. Wet air of sufficiently high temperature is not easily available according to such subterranean heat exchange. Heat emitted in the initial stage of the night time warming which lasts from two to three hours is relatively substantial. However, as the subterranean temperature goes down, and particularly at the final phase of the warming operation, warming capacity becomes so weakened that the emitted heat is very little. Furthermore, there is a need to supply large quantity of air to the long pipings of big diameter under the ground, so that the power required by the blower must be large.